Abstract: The project is one in applied research, to describe in a book for the use of mental health workers in rural areas: 1) The special problems associated with rural life both for patients and for mental health workers, 2) To describe the program of research on human predicaments and the results which guided the development of services, 3) To show how a unique network of human services was developed for a rural island community, and 4) To describe the efforts to make mental health work, both overt and covert, a continuing and integral part of the community's activities.